Sunday, January 29, 2012

This is my arm one week after my trip to the ER. When someone came in to take blood he introduced himself as a vampire. I said "it's a good thing because my veins are small and deep. They don't give it up easily." He looked around and went for this. Why did he choose this area? It burst almost immediately. It was the most painful blood draw I have ever had in my entire life. It actually took my mind off my stomach for a minute. Of course he had to go again to my other arm in the crook of my elbow like a normal person. But first he left to go get a smaller needle. Did I not warn you? I asked him if he was a phlebotomist or a nurse. He said a paramedic. I said, "so your patients are usually unconscious already." I asked if he would like to try my skull next. He said he did have a gun that shot right into the bone, but he would have to take me outside to do it because he wasn't allowed to do it in the hospital. It sounds like I was being horrible, but my husband was right outside in the hallway answering questions. He came in and asked what all the giggling was about. My nurse was in there too. He was laughing at how I was interacting with the paramedic. See, when I am in a bad spot I make jokes and laugh to relieve tension. But now I think, seriously, what was he thinking? Was he just trying to prove he could get my veins. I've had kidney problems since I was 6 years old. I know my veins by now. Let me save you some trouble and me some pain and heed my warning. Maybe I'll have a warning label tattooed on my arm just in case I ever am unconscious for the paramedics.

My original post about my surgery disappeared when I opened it in my iPad to publish a comment. So I am rewriting it. I know this one is totally different since my first one was written while still half high from whatever I was on when I left the hospital. I'm sure you'll get more detail and less sarcasm. I guess the truth is gone now along with most of my memory of what happened those couple of days.

"Surgery"

Some of you may know that I've been struggling with GI
problems since this past summer. First they did an ultrasound on my
gall bladder that showed no stones. Then it was determined that I had an
inflamed stomach after a scope and biopsies which also showed that I
did not have any ulcers, polyps or Celiac Disease. This was probably
because I had been using Aleve in conjunction with my migraine medicine
for over a year after moving here to manage my migraines. I didn't know
that Aleve would tear up your stomach. So don't believe the commercials
that say to use it everyday. I was put on the GURD diet to heal my
stomach along with some medications. As of early January, I've lost 35 pounds just
by observing the GURD diet. If I ate anything that was not on the diet I
was in pain. My stomach didn't seem to be healing. They changed some of
my medications and that seemed to help a little. In early December they
did a HIDA scan
to see if my gall bladder had just quit working. The results came back
abnormal. The gall bladder was supposed to empty 40% but only emptied
20%. The doctor said that it was not enough to removed the gall bladder.
Lots of people live with it like this and I was just to let him know
when I couldn't handle it any longer and we could take it out. So his
diagnosis for me was a little bit of GURD, which I never feel, maybe a
little bit of IBS, and a gall bladder that isn't fully working. Sunday
night, Jan. 22, at about 10 pm I had an episode that was the most painful so far. I
tried to wait it out like normal, but couldn't. The pain was so bad I
was vomitting. I told Rob he had to take me to the ER. I was beginning
to think that there was something else wrong with me, but at the least
it was time to take out the gall bladder. A little after midnight we
went to the ER. They did an ultrasound and found gall stones, so
obviously the first one I had six months ago was wrong. My liver was enlarged and my white blood cell count was
up which indicated that I had an obstruction. They said that I had
probably passed a gall stone. That would require a second procedure
later to locate it and retrieve it, however they would verify that
during surgery.I was treated
for pain, admitted and they did surgery first thing in the morning to have my gall bladder removed. When
I woke in my room later I still had all the pain from before we went to
the ER and now the pain from surgery. They had given me morphine, but
it was not working. And they couldn't give me anything else until the
morphine was out of my system. So I had to wait out the pain until they
could give me something else. It was a very unpleasant few hours. The
morphine did however make me nauseated so I was not able to eat the
liquid diet they gave me. They would not let me try saltines or oatmeal
or anything else I thought I could tolerate because I first had to
successfully hold down the liquid diet before going on to a solid diet.
Because of my pain level and inability to keep down the liquids they
kept me overnight. They did finally get me something that helped with
pain, I think it was some kind of muscle relaxer. About 3 am I told the
nurse that I was really hungry and would like to try to eat something,
but that they wouldn't let me during the day. This nurse was a lot more
relaxed. She brought me some cheerios and I held them down fine. So she
went into the computer and changed my diet to get me oatmeal for
breakfast. About mid day I was released to come home. My mother-in-law
is here to help take care of the baby and my parents are coming after
her. When I took the bandages off Wednesday as instructed, I found that I
had 6 staples. They did not tell me this before I left the hospital. I
go to get those out next week.

Taken a few weeks ago at the reception following a friend's Change of Command ceremony.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Hey everybody,
The content from my last blog "surgery" disappeared. If any of you happened to save it on a screen shot or made a pdf I would love if you could send it to me so that I could repost it. My address is thisismyfibro@gmail.com
Thanks

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Okay, I know most people only get 6 to 12 weeks, but I'm not most people. I have Fibromyalgia. Wait, can I use that excuse? No, I can't. I've been off the blogosphere for four and a half months now. But it's not because of the Fibro. Yes, it has played a role, but only a small part. It's more because of my situation as a "mom". I'm a new mom, but not by birth. We are doing foster to adopt. On August 26 we got the call to come to the hospital to pick up a 5 day old baby boy who had been born on drugs. He was ready to go home, but needed a safe place to go. He was a preemie and had the jitters and tremors. He was so tiny when we brought him home, 4 lbs 7 oz., that we called him Paquito. For the first 2 and a half months he had to eat every 2 hours, which took almost an hour. I was getting only about 45 minutes sleep at a time if I was lucky. It was hard. After about a month we were asked if we could take another baby boy for about 2 months. He was the same age as Paquito, but healthy. I figured I'm not getting any sleep anyway, so I might as well. Wow, I had no idea. Shortly after we welcomed home the second baby Paquito took a turn for the worse. He had been struggling with reflux so bad that he spent the whole night choking and gagging. He wasn't gaining weight and was diagnosed with severe failure to thrive. He ended up on a feeding tube. An n.g. tube, the one that goes down the nose. So now I spent all my time trying to keep him from pulling it out and he spent 14 hours a day hooked up to an IV pole. It did accidentally come out twice. The tube helped and he started to gain weight. Meanwhile I continued to struggle with my own health issues. I had been having stomach problems. They persisted. I did not have gall stones. My stomach was inflamed, but there were no polyps or ulcers. I tested negative for Celiac disease. He did say that there is a small chance that it was a false negative. I was to continue the medicine and GURD diet. I was having so much trouble with what I could tolerate that I've lost 35 pounds. I'm glad to have lost the weight, but it's not the way you wanna lose it. And I figure once I'm back to normal again it'll probably all come back on. They did a Hyda-scan on me to see if my gall bladder just quit working. The test did show that it was not functioning completely, but not enough to remove it. It evidently is supposed to empty 40 percent of what they put in you during the second part of the test and mine only emptied 20 percent and I didn't experience pain during the test. However, I was so cold that my entire body was seized up. That's a later story. So after 2 months the second baby wasn't going home, but he was moved to a different foster home to protect Paquito's health. We were told that he was too fragile to get sick. We had been quarantined in the house only going to doctor's visits for most his life. But the other baby went to visitations with his family including 3 older siblings which meant he was exposed to lots of germs that would come home to Paquito. Things did get easier once we were back to one child especially once he was off the feeding tube. My GI doctor said that his diagnosis for me is the inflamed stomach, a little bit of GURD, the gall bladder is not completely working, and maybe a little IBS. All that combined has given me all this trouble. As long as I stick to the diet and my meds I'm okay. But it is hard. The other thing that will be hard is blogging. I'm going to try to get caught up. I'll post some things to catch you up, but the dates won't be accurate because I just don't have the mental energy to bother with it.

About This Blog

I have Fibromyalgia. Do you know what that is? Fibromyalgia (pronounced fy-bro-my-AL-ja) is a common and complex chronic pain disorder that affects people physically, mentally and socially. It is characterized by chronic widespread pain, multiple tender points, abnormal pain processing, sleep disturbances, fatigue and often psychological distress. At least that's what the experts say. But Fibro is different for everyone. I know we are all hurting and every day is hard. What I want is a place to ask questions, get opinions and answers. If you need to described your symptoms or struggles in order to ask questions or to share your solutions, that's great. But let's not just post about how miserable we are. I want to be part of a group that shares this together, but with a positive outlook. Let's learn how to live with this, survive it, be cured from it. I only get one life and I will not let Fibromyalgia take the joy from my living it.

***WARNING:***

content is personal and, as Fibromyalgia is a medical condition, may be graphic in nature.

ABOUT ME

I am 36 years old and live in Texas with my husband, currently two foster babies and two dogs. After two years of refusing to let my doctor diagnose me with Fibromyalgia I was finally and officially diagnosed in the fall of 2008. Looking back I believe I have probably had Fibro since about 2001. Although everyone's case is different I always felt that mine was exceptionally so. After sharing this blog and interacting with others on Facebook I have found that is not the case. I have the pain normally associated with FM however not to the debilitating levels that many of you suffer. I suffer mostly from an extreme sensitivity to external stimuli, i.e. sounds, smells, light, movement, changes in temperature resulting in severe nausea, vertigo and migraines. Before my diagnosis people would often ask me if I was pregnant and my reply would be, "if so I've been pregnant for six years."